More staff to reduce wait for speech and language therapy assessments

WITH 188 people in Donegal waiting 12-18 months for a speech and language therapy assessment, two new staff are to be recruited.

Two agency speech and language therapists are to begin work next month and will be assigned to reducing the waiting list, it has been confirmed.

At the moment, 290 people face waits of up to four months for an assessment, 204 will wait 4-8 months and 129 will have to wait for 8-12 months.

“An inordinate amount people are waiting on these services,” Councillor Gerry McMonagle said at this month’s Regional Health Forum West meeting.

“Recruitment is also underway to backfill vacant posts and an SLT is due to return from leave in the coming months,” John Hayes, the Chief Office in CHO1, said.

“Clearly, Covid has impacted on the waiting times. We are trying very hard to restore services and to bring new people in.

“We have been successful in recruiting two agency staff, who will start in April. We will try and recruit additional staff.

“This could be impacted by how Covid reduces or doesn’t reduce.

“We are a little cautious in terms of putting numbers on it.  Assuming that all goes okay, we will reuse the waiting list before the end of the year.”